Strategy and Command

The following is an excerpt from Strategy and Command: The Anglo-French Coalition on the Western Front, 1914 by Roy A. Prete, now available in paperback.

While
less tangible than physical arrangements, the relationships established between
key military personalities, who would later play major roles in the conduct of
the war, were crucial to future relations. Likewise, the attitudes and images
held by the two potential allies of each other helped shape their social
interaction and often governed how they responded to one another in specific
instances.

While
French officers tended to assume an attitude of superiority in dealing with
their British counterparts, much progress was made in the decade before the war
in establishing amiable personal interactions. Wilson in his several trips to
France established friendships with Foch, Joffre, Castelnau, and others. Sir
John French visited manoeuvres in France in 1908, 1911, and 1913, as did his
eventual successor as commander of the BEF, Sir Douglas Haig, in 1914. Both established a cordial
relationship with Foch, who visited English manoeuvres in 1912, followed by Castelnau
a year later. Both military attachés in London,
Colonel Victor Huguet, who served a decade in that position, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Arthus de la Panouse, his successor, enjoyed cordial
relations with British military circles. These contacts, as well as several at
lower staff levels, served to break down prejudices and suspicions and to build
a relationship of trust and confidence. But regrettably, Joffre’s association
with the British was mainly through Wilson and the military attachés, giving him a distinct lack of personal acquaintances in
the British army.⁵⁹

French
officers were much impressed with the lifestyle of their aristocratic British
counterparts, with their “luxurious mess, quantities of silverplate, and teams
of polo ponies, all maintained by private means,” and despite the occasional “hint
of republican disapproval” had no difficulty falling in socially. The British
officer corps, most French observers agreed, was less dilettante and more “studious
and professional” than in times past.⁶⁰ French observers at manoeuvres
nonetheless reported that British commanders seemed unfamiliar with the
handling of large units and would probably show “hesitant movements and an
indecisive manner” in battle.⁶¹ British officers of the aristocratic class, on
the other hand, were less impressed with their middle-class French
counterparts, whom they thought during the war had no sense of gentlemanly
conduct, were scheming, small-minded, and indirect. They particularly resented
the imperious attitude of the French and their desire to dominate militarily.

One
persistent image, shaped in the prewar period by the assessments of Foch and
Huguet on the nature of British public opinion and temperament, was that the
British would be “slow and late.” Slow to see their interests, they would not
intervene on the Continent until they were sure where their interests lay.
Another persistent image, based on French assessment of the phlegmatic nature
of British character, was that the British would be stolid warriors, persistent
once engaged, and therefore likely to go on to victory, but not well suited for
offensive warfare without French support. However, the French recognized the
value of the British army, a small but well-trained professional fighting force
that could provide a substantial reinforcement to the French army and even tip
the numerical scale in their favour. Moreover, British participation would strengthen
French morale and provide a form of insurance should the war become prolonged.

Still,
prejudices remained; centuries of bitter rivalry could not be forgotten in a
single decade, and French fears of “perfidious Albion,” which manipulated the
continental balance for its own interest, were never far from the surface in
even the most ardent anglophiles. Foch, for example, despite his friendship
with the British, predicted that Great Britain, lacking a large army to defend
its interests, would follow the policy of making agreements with continental
powers with larger land forces in order “to ask much of them and, on the day of
reckoning, bring them little.” Britain, he observed, “only respects us because
of our large army.”⁶⁴ Others on Joffre’s wartime staff were out-and-out
anglophobes, including General Henri Berthelot, his assistant chief of staff,
Major Maurice Gamelin, his aide-de-camp, and especially General Charles
Lanrezac, who was to command the French Fifth Army next to the British. But
their influence was not sufficient to poison Joffre’s moderate attitude toward
the English totally.